FFXIV; Upgrade CPU or GFX Card, or both?

Yosiah

Yosiah

Yosiah

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17 Sep 2010
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I have a pretty dump system at the moment:

AM2 7750 BE @ 3.0Ghz
HD 4870 512MB
2GB Ram

I can pull 2300 on the FFXIV benchmark in Low settings and the Open Beta seems to run at a choppy 20fps in the fields.

I was thinking of grabbing a Phenom II x4 965 @3.4Ghz. Would this help me run the game smoothly do you think? I was also thinking of getting a HIS 5850 Turbo, but I would rather not have to spend any more money than is necessary to enjoy the game. Obviously FFXIV uses 4 cores, and I only have a dual core - maybe my 4870 will be sufficient at 1680x1050 with a few lowered graphics settings, because changing the Texture/Filtering options doesn't seem to affect my FPS much.

Regards!

Ps.

I know my board is capable of running an AM3 x4 965, even though it is an AM2+, but would it be a good idea to get:

- AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
- Corsair Dominator 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMD4GX3M2A1600C9)
- Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard
- Titan Fenrir Evo CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AMD K8/AM2/AM2+/AM3)

or just get a x4 965 and a 5850, and upgrade my Board and Ram later?
 
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you might want to check the RAM, i could be wrong but your currently 2GB RAM is probably DDR2 and your motherboard might not support DDR3... check it out before buying some stuff.
i'll test the benchmark out for you tomorrow morning. i have a AMD 955Be 3.2Ghz at stock with a 4890 at stock also, so i suppose it'll show the difference with 4 cores. then you can decide whether its worth to upgrade the CPU or GPU.
Can i ask are you planning to actually play the game once its out? and do other games struggle at times?
 
You can run a x4 965 AM3 on an AM2+ board using DDR2 memory. Just not ideal, I guess.

And yes. I will be switching from WoW/FFXI to FFXIV.
 
I have a the 955BE at stock, 4GB of ram and a GTX460 the 768MB one and I get just over 5000 points in the 14 benchmark on low settings, and it ran the beta very smoothly on whatever the games default settings were at 1920x1080.

Cant really give any pointers on upgrading, But theres just something to compare with.
 
yea you can run an AM3 cpu on your AM2+ board that's what im doing. i was just talking about the memory upgrade from DDR2 to DDR3 though as i know with my AM2+ board i cant change to DDR3 which i think is a bit of a shame.
i'll run it tomorrow morning and post up my results.
 
GTX 460 is better than the 4870 though, I guess. It would be super awesome if I could find someone with a 4870, but also a quad core to see what results they get :)

It would be nice to only have to spend the £125 on the x4 and buy the game :P Rather than upgrading the GPU also, which would be expensive :<
 
what speed core/memory does your 4870 run at ??
just thinking i could underclock it to show you what you'd get roughly
 
Well the 4870 is 750/900 , but clocks aside theres differences in shaders stuff etc as well.

Actually... the 4870 isnt that much diff to 4890 is it heh
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I would get the Phenom II X4 955BE and another 2GB of RAM.
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I dunno. I know the 965 is just a higher clocked 955, but I'd rather just get it 965 cos it's simpler heh. Another 2gb ram would be a waste with it being DDR2, I'd rather get the ram when I upgrade the Motherboard as well. Just want to spend as little as possible in the meantime, if you follow.
 
The open beta is a mess, specs mean nothing when the game is so poorly optimized for PC. Hope they can fix before launch, having terrible fps issues on my pc
 
Well they have 4 days, so I doubt it will improve much. They haven't even got hardware mouse support in yet, without a player made patch. Then again, maybe release will surprise us considering it's double the size of the Open Beta Client.
 
ok well with my 955Be at 3Ghz and the 4890 at 755/900 (core/mem) speeds i got 2070 points at high setting with 1920x1080 resolution. it slowed down probably to around 25-30fps at places in the sea scene but not the point where its like holy crap my graphics card is rubbish.

EDIT: just running low setting now, will edit post with results
EDIT 2: got 3600 points at low setting.

from that result i'd say upgrading to quad core is worth it but do expect to have to drop some settings for the sake of fps if you want a constant 60fps.
another option could be to get another 4870 and crossfire them.
i take it you have a monitor that does 1920x1080?
 
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in that case quad core it is. have to say your computer will feel smoother too with a quad core. plus im sure there are other games that'll use up quad core other than ff xiv
 
sja360 said:
in that case quad core it is. have to say your computer will feel smoother too with a quad core. plus im sure there are other games that'll use up quad core other than ff xiv
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Yep, Cataclysm if FFXIV is cr*p :P And Starcraft 2. Wanting to play Fallout 3 Vegas as well etc, so it's gonna be a worthwhile upgrade at any rate.

If only it was Monday tomorrow lol.
 
DitsHavoc said:
The open beta is a mess, specs mean nothing when the game is so poorly optimized for PC. Hope they can fix before launch, having terrible fps issues on my pc
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They say it's old code, and that the release version will fix all. *Cough* BS *cough*. I, er, don't swallow that ;)

I mean it makes no sense. Why get people to beta test old code when a) it gives a really bad impression and b) your new code will need testing too.

But this isn't the first time a developer has made such claims, I've seen other cases. And 9 times out of 10 the release version is in the same sorry state as the "old code". But I guess we're all suckers if we want to believe something badly enough :p
 
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